A Riverside man has been accused of hanging a noose to intimidate a mixed-race family — the first prosecution of the state anti-hate law in Inland Southern California since the Legislature added nooses to the statute nine years ago.

Levi Jared Grant Lehman, 30, pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charge Feb. 16. He has been out of custody on his own recognizance, but Superior Court Commissioner Tamara Wagner issued a warrant for his arrest April 27 when he failed to appear for a hearing, records show.

Lehman was still at large Friday, May 11. If convicted, he faces one year in jail, a $5,000 fine or both.

Police believe the noose targeted Gregg and Peggy Paxton, who share their home with daughter Jessica and her five children, who are mixed races, black and white. Peggy Paxton said they’ve never met Lehman.

“It’s sick. Who does this?” she said.

Levi Jared Lehman in February 2018 was charged with posting a noose at the fence that separates his backyard from his neighbor’s yard in Riverside. (Courtesy of the Paxton family)

The noose law is rooted in what the Legislature in 2009 wrote were almost 3,000 lynch-mob killings, mostly of blacks, between 1882 and 1930 in southern states, and the emotional trauma that seeing a noose can cause today.

“Given this history, to a reasonable person, the display of a noose at a school, park, place of employment, or other public venue amounts to a direct and immediate threat of force that would intimidate persons based on racial characteristics,” the Legislature wrote.

In 2009, the crime was added to an existing law prohibiting the display of symbols such as swastikas and burning crosses to terrorize or intimidate victims. In addition to Riverside County, it has also never been prosecuted in San Bernardino, Orange and Los Angeles counties since that date, officials in those locations said.

“It’s pretty rare as far as prosecuting it,” said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino. “That law is not used that much relative to the other hate crime statutes we have in the state because it is so specific.”

Such symbols of horrors of the past still unnerve people today, said Woodie Rucker-Hughes, president of the Riverside branch of the NAACP. She has received four or five calls in the past year from victims with fear and anger in their voices.

A person who sees a noose interprets that, Rucker-Hughes said, as “You’re telling me that you are going to string me up.”

Shocked employees and a parent complained. The district said it disciplined the responsible employees.

Neighbors trade accusations

The Paxtons’ home overlooking Riverside’s exclusive Victoria Club backs up to Lehman’s property. Someone threw rocks into their yard in December, including one that smashed through a bedroom window, so they installed surveillance cameras to catch the culprit.

Then, in a video they captured in mid-January, a man on the Lehman’s property is shown putting up a skull that looks like a Halloween decoration — except this one had a noose around its neck. The video also showed the same person setting up a camera in the yard to record the hanging of the noose.

The Paxtons gave the video to police, who then questioned Levi Lehman.

“He admitted to placing it on his fence and stated the reason for it was due to the fact that he believes the unknown black male adult that had come to his residence at around midnight asking for his wife came from Paxton’s residence,” an officer said in an affidavit written to obtain an arrest warrant.

Lehman also told investigators that his property has been vandalized.

Lehman’s father, Grant Lehman, said in a phone interview from Tucson, Arizona, that Levi has moved his family in with him because he is afraid of the Paxtons.

A view from the inside of the home of Gregg and Peggy Paxton shows damage caused by a rock they said was thrown through the window of their home in Riverside. Levi Jared Lehman pleaded not guilty in February 2018 to a charge of erecting a noose above the fence between his home and the Paxtons’. (Courtesy of Paxton family)

Grant Lehman said the Paxtons are “terrorizing a Jewish family” and have tampered with the natural-gas line at his son’s house. Levi Lehman told police that someone slashed his tires and shattered his windows, according to a court document.

Gregg and Peggy Paxton denied those allegations.

Riverside police Officer Ryan Railsback said Levi Lehman “has not been able to provide one shred of evidence on anything they have been doing.”

And the minutes of an April 18 status conference suggested that an attempt to deliver a legal document to Lehman instructing him not to contact the Paxtons might be why he moved to Arizona.

“Defendant is avoiding service,” the court minutes said.

Peggy Paxton said her grandchildren are afraid to use their expansive backyard, which includes a large swimming pool.

Paxton, a Girl Scout leader, said she no longer feels comfortable inviting troop members over for barbecuing and swimming.

“It breaks my heart,” she said.

Free speech vs. a crime

The state hate-crime law amended in 2009 was one of several similar laws enacted by states following a notorious incident in 2006 in Jena, Louisiana, in which six black students beat a white student. The attack came months after nooses were hung at Jena High. The defendants became known as the Jena Six.

Critics believed the initial charges of attempted second-degree murder were too serious and cited those charges as a symbol of racial injustice. The six eventually were convicted of simple battery.

Sign up for our breaking news email newsletter: When major local news happens, you will be the first to know. Subscribe here.

Others have complained that charging someone with hanging a noose is a violation of the First Amendment protection of free speech. One court ruled that prosecutors must prove an intent to frighten or intimidate.

“A noose is considered a type of threat. That is why it passes constitutional muster,” Cal State’s Levin said.

Swastikas and burning crosses, unlike nooses, are not always considered threats, Levin said, as they also could be an expression of an ideology.

To prosecute those areas of the law, “You want to get to the implied threats rather than the ideology behind the threats,” Levin said.

Brian Rokos writes about public safety issues such as policing, criminal justice, scams, how law affects public safety, firefighting tactics and wildland fire danger. He has also covered the cities of San Bernardino, Corona, Norco, Lake Elsinore, Perris, Canyon Lake and Hemet. Before that he supervised reporters and worked as a copy editor. For some reason, he enjoys movies where the Earth is threatened with extinction.